


The Next Four Years

by glittagal333



Series: First Order Academy: Stellulcus [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: /winkwonk, Blood, Bullying, Cadet Hux, Cadets, Crying, How Do I Tag, Military Academy, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Swearing, Trapped In A Closet, Underage Smoking, christ i'm so bad at tags, me sowing the tiniest seeds of future sexual tension, meanie nicknames, the "hux in training" one, the world's most underappreciated maintenance staff, they're all out to get each other but the real treasure is the friends they made along the way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-17
Updated: 2016-08-05
Packaged: 2018-07-24 16:22:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7515010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glittagal333/pseuds/glittagal333
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"There was no room for softness here, one could say, although it became more obvious as one spent more time at the academy.<br/>This was not something a fifteen year old Armitage Hux had experienced firsthand just yet, but it would not be long before the sentiment would ring loud and clear."</p><p>Or: Armitage Hux before he becomes General Hux - Cadet Hux, and the hell that is an all-boys military academy.<br/>The first part of a series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introduction/And Then There Were Five

**Author's Note:**

> Lads, there's nothing I enjoy more than boarding academy type things. This is what this is, starring everybody's problematic fave, Armitage Hux. Hux is a character I just love getting my awful, greasy little hands into and fleshing out with headcanons and backstory.  
> I'm aware we got a piece of Hux's backstory in Aftermath, and the headcanons expressed within this fic are from pre-reveal times - luckily, I don't think it effects it too much anyways.
> 
> Be aware this is an intro piece! I'm gonna get even further into each character as I churn out more of these. I love character studies. I also took a few liberties and added a few original planets in this fic, because hey = the Unknown Regions and Wild Space are big and unexplored and begging for me to add to them. Anyway, I hope you like this - see you at the end of the work. I'll have more notes there, probably.

The day that Darth Vader and Palpatine fell was considered by many the beginning of the end for the Empire. Some outright considered that point the end, although it would several years until every scrap of its remains would be scrubbed from what was now Republican space. Most of the deportations and base clearings, arresting and jailing and demolitions of Empire families and their properties were done by the book of the law – forceful, but not violent unless things needed to head that way. The New Republic wanted to establish itself on order, not violence or chaos.

Of course, not everyone agreed with these wishes. Not even some members of the New Republic. All they knew was that they had won, and anybody affiliated with the Empire needed to get out of the space that was now theirs.  
Whether they liked it or not.

The engine running the Galactic Empire may have had poor intentions, but not all of its supporters were the same. Some were people who thought the Empire’s rule was the only one that could keep them safe. Others simply did not know any other way except the Empire’s, and their children grew up thinking the same.  These innocents were treated the same way as the extremists they shared political favourites with – chased from their homes, picketed in the streets and ultimately forced to flee from their home worlds, far from the Inner Rim and Core Worlds, into the expanses of the Unknown Regions and Wild Space.

Here, they had to start over from scratch on often wild, uninhabitable planets – forced to learn to adapt, to get on with vicious species and weather conditions that humans were never meant to live in. But what else was there to do? Live life on the run back within the Rim, constantly dodging Republican law enforcers and the new, angry, _victorious_ people who lived there, just in order to have the niceties of human civilization?

It was stupid. Better to live in the hells of the Unknown Regions, to learn a new way of life. To figure out how to return things to the way they were.

The figureheads behind the Empire who still remained did eventually find each other again, out in all of that space. It is surprising how small such large expanses can feel if you keep running into the very people you’re looking for.  
Ships had to have tracking signals hacked and reworked so that they could indeed find each other, but not be found by the Republic, who would still perform sweeps of the Unknown Regions closest to the Outer Rim. One could never be too careful.

And upon finding each other, they talked. Talked and talked and talked, for a long time, for weeks and months and years, even, about their next move. About how they would reclaim what was taken from them. Three distinct factions arose during these talks; those who thought that the simplest idea was the best of them – reviving the Empire under a new Emperor, rebuilding, and retaking Republican space; those who thought that they had well and truly lost, that the fight was over, and that they ought to start making Republican allies and, more importantly, Republican money so that they might return to hospitable planets; and those who thought that they needed to start over from scratch.  
To recreate the glory of the Empire, but _better_. Improved. Reworked and tweaked to perfection. Something that the Republic couldn’t touch, because it wasn’t the Empire. It was something new altogether.

This latter was, perhaps unbeknownst to them at the time, the spark that would soon become the flames of the First Order. The members of factions one and three could agree on one thing, though – they needed to train their sons and daughters for war, because if things went their way, there would certainly be more of it to come.

Everything came together at a certain pace – slow, but not slow enough to make people lose hope. Those who were determined to be ready for war eventually found themselves a base on the freezing, snow-covered planet of Ark Trellis. This would be the stronghold of their new government, their new army. A beacon for all of the displaced Empire supporters littered across the Unknown Regions and Wild Space, both politically and militaristically, to let them know that some sort of representation existed for them amongst the very alien inhabitants and storm tossed planets they now called their homes.

One of the members of this new sort of order on Ark Trellis was Brendol Hux – a man who knew all about readying sons and daughters for war because prior to the Empire’s fall, that was his job. He had run and trained cadets on Arkanis Academy for quite some time. His methods, by his own standards, did not have to die like the Empire had. They were still valid, and there was obvious proof that they still worked.  
Hux proposed to this new order that they resume the training of cadets out in the Unknown Regions. All they needed were buildings to house their students and teachers willing to train them – and who better than the men and women who had already loyally served the Empire to the very end?

So it began, once again, slowly, but not too slowly. The bargaining with not-so-Republican welders, builders, architects, all dreaming for the good old days of the Empire, or men and women who could be twisted to abandon their allegiances for the right price.  
A lot of the money came out of the pockets of one Edgar Pault – a man who had always wanted a piece of the Empire’s glory but never got quite close enough to do so in its heyday – who had spent many years taking his vast, inherited fortune, laundering it and hiding huge sums of it in the Outer Rim and Unknown Regions.

According to Pault, one could not stay a wealthy man without becoming a criminal – the key was to become wealthy enough that nobody cared about your criminal activities.

Another reason that Pault had decided to drop ludicrous amounts of funding into this fledgling project of theirs, he revealed to Brendol Hux, was that he had a son who he wanted to achieve the glory that he never had the chance to grasp – to be a part of this new world order in the midst of its rise and glory.  
Hux also had a son. The two of them shared a sort of grief over the fact that their children had only lived to see the Empire die. But they would fix this, and their sons, perhaps, could be great new figureheads of a new Empire long after their fathers had passed.

No, not perhaps. They _would_ be.

* * *

\- Planet of Stellulcus, Unknown Regions, approx 15 ABY -

 

The planet of Stellulcus was known for two quite contrasting things – firstly, its beauty. The sand that covered the mostly craggy terrain of the planet was silky and silver in colour, far finer than the sand found on other planets like Tatooine or Jakku. The planet received only eight to nine hours of sunlight a day, but the setting sun, for an as of yet unexplained reason, splashed the sky in deep blues, indigos and purples as it sank down from its lofty perch. Despite the fact that it did rain and bodies of water – if a little scarce – dotted the planet, it was difficult to grow any sort of flora on Stellulcus.  
There were probably researchers, back in the Inner Rim, who longed to investigate and fully flesh out the whats and whys of the barren but beautiful planet, but they were all put off by the distance to travel to it in the Unknown Regions, and the second of the contrasting reasons that Stellulcus was known for:

Stellulcus, aside from its rain, was subject to asteroid showers approximately one hundred and twenty one days of the year. Once every three days or so, rocks would rain down from space and right into the planet’s surface. They weren’t always serious showers – sometimes, the asteroids would be so tiny you wouldn’t be that bothered by the dust they kicked up – but the heavy hitting ones would leave craters and cause dust storms that sometimes did not subside for days on end. And sometimes, more asteroids would hit during the dust storms. The impaired visibility that came with the storms made survival dangerous because one would not be able to see the asteroid travelling at such a speed that it would kill them upon contact.  
These were the reasons that researchers had not arrived decades ago to scope out the planet of Stellulcus.  
However, these conditions did not put off the builders and welders and architects hired by what was soon to become the First Order – in fact, the planet had been viewed favourably for the exact reason that nobody would want to set foot on the thing, let alone suspect that there was a military academy there that was raising what the group back on Ark Trellis hoped would be the next great soldiers, generals and supporters of their new empire.

Two-thirds of the huge, metallic building was constructed underground to minimalise costs on asteroid-proofing the entire academy. Not a single one of the dormitories were part of that one third above ground, so they were without windows and constantly lit only by electricity. The inside of the academy looked strangely retro, with the aesthetic of the old Republic ironically being the first thing that came to mind when the entire building was finished. It was white, white, white, with sharp corners and absolutely no sign of carpeting.  
Just metal. As metal as it was on the outside. There was no room for softness here, one could say, although it became more obvious as one spent more time at the academy.

This was not something a fifteen year old Armitage Hux had experienced firsthand just yet, but it would not be long before the sentiment would ring loud and clear. Not that it would be a huge shock to his system – no, his father had taught him the perils of softness long before he arrived at the academy, and made sure that none of it was left within his son. His prodigy.

It was five or six to a dorm room, single sex (obviously – there was a female academy on Stellulcus as well, however, about fifty miles or so west), all bunk beds with one refresher between them. If you didn’t like one of your dorm mates – or, Force help you, all of them – that was your issue to deal with, not the staff’s. No softness. No help. This was war.  
Armitage currently stood at five foot seven-and-a-half inches. He would not get his puberty assisted growth spurt until the following winter, and was definitely smaller than ninety five percent of the other cadets he had seen so far, including all of his dorm mates. He was skinny, too, with bony arms that he was glad his uniform coat covered up. His physique was obviously not his most prized possession at the time – no, that was his mind. He was incredibly well read in history, weaponry, mechanics and anything else he could get his hands on in his youth.  
This would only be improved when he eventually figured out how to jailbreak the academy provided datapads.

One of his aforementioned dorm mates who were all taller than him was the son of Edgar Pault, Trentias, who was blonde and pointy-faced and the least enthusiastic person Hux had met in the pursuit of a new empire. They had met each other a few times prior to being enrolled at the same, asteroid battered academy together on Ark Trellis whilst their fathers talked business, but Trentias was beginning to mold into what looked like a young man now.  
Hux was not. Not yet. Not entirely. He had a growing boy’s face (dotted in freckles), but a not-quite-there-yet boy’s body.

“This kriffing sucks.” were Trentias’ first words upon dropping his bags in their dormitory on the first day of their tenure at the academy. A man of his word, he would carry this opinion for the next four years until they graduated.  
Trentias, much to his father’s chagrin, had no interest in becoming a soldier, or a general, or even an emperor. He wanted to go back to the Core Worlds that he had heard so much about and spend his father’s money on what every teenage boy wants – frivolities and women. Edgar Pault had assumed a few years in the academy would soon change his son’s mind for the better.  
He was wrong.

“Good to see you’re prepared to go into this with high spirits.” Hux said, voice dripping with sarcasm. He tossed his bag on to one of the top bunks in some sort of attempt to claim it for himself.

“Oh, shut up.”

That was the end of that conversation. A hush fell over the room – the windowless, white, metal, slightly claustrophobic room – which hadn’t yet been filled by the rest of its intended occupants. Hux rolled his eyes and set about unpacking what little he had needed to bring with him; a few changes of uniform, pyjamas, a toothbrush—

“Pault?”

No reply. But Hux knew what he had just heard.

“Pault, are you crying?”

“No.”

“Yes, you are. Why are you crying?”

“Hux, _kriff_ off.”

The door to their dormitory slid open and Trentias wiped the tears from his face just in time to see a tall, well-muscled but incredibly awkward youth standing in the doorway with a bag slung over his shoulder.

“What do you want?!”

“I suspect he’s probably going to be rooming with us here, Pault, so I’d not bite his head off just yet,” Hux stared the new arrival down from his bunk. “Am I right?”

“Uh,” tall-and-awkward nodded. “Yeah. I mean, this is the dorm room I was assigned to, so...”

“That makes three of us so far, then. What’s your name?”

“Darin Subaltyrn,” he extended a hand to Trentias, who stared at it with still watery eyes like he was being presented with a dead rat. “N-Nice to meet, you, I guess.”

“Shake his hand, Pault, he’s not got parasites,” Hux leaned down from his perch and offered his own hand. “Armitage Hux.”

“Hux? Like—?”

“Brendol Hux, yes.  I’m his son.”

“Wow,” Darin shook Hux’s hand with wide eyes. “My mom’s a big fan. She wanted to send me to Arkanis before... well, everything happened.”

Hux only nodded, not quite sure how to react to the comment. His father was a powerful influence in the days of the Empire: that much he knew. A man that easily garnered respect.  
But the praise was not his to take, so that was that.

“That’s Trentias Pault,” he pointed to the blonde on the lower bunk, who still looked vaguely insulted by Darin being there. “This academy has basically come out of his father’s pockets.”

“Wow. I didn’t realise I’d be sharing bunks with, uh, big deals.”

Darin went to deposit his bag on the top bunk above where Trentias was currently sprawled out, weaning off of his despair, but decided against it when the blonde gave him a look that could dissolve concrete.  
Instead, Darin tentatively placed his bag on the bunk below Hux’s.

“We should look around,” the redhead suggested. “see as much as we can before they lock us into our schedules and curfews. I wonder how difficult it would be to find a map or blueprints of the building.”

“Pfft. Not that difficult,” Trentias wiped his face with the back of his hand and sat up, pulling a datapad from his still packed bag. “my father _paid_ for the place.”

 

 

Stellulcus Academy was made up of an impressive seven floors, two of which were above ground, five below, each with middle sections, east and west wings. Every single one of these floors was still made up of white, sharp cornered metal. The three lowermost floors were student dormitories, common rooms, kitchen and mess hall areas; the floor above those three were staff dormitories and living areas; and the remaining floors were dedicated to classrooms, labs, gymnasiums, offices and everything else one might expect to find in an educational building.  
They may have been preparing the students within their walls for war, but the masterminds behind the new order academies knew the only thing worse than untrained soldiers were untrained _and_ idiotic ones.

It was lucky that the main terrain outside of the academy walls was silvery sand. Mud would ruin the place in a heartbeat.

Connecting each of the floors were flights upon flights of stairs and elevators – time sensitive as to prevent students from mucking about after curfew, when they would all be sealed into the bottom three floors unless there was an emergency – and everything below the ground, exactly as the dormitories were, was windowless and lit by lights that tended to either be too bright or blue-tinted and dim. There was no accommodating middleman.

Hux and his companions’ room – 367B – was on the second most bottom floor in the west wing. Walking through the hallways towards the middle section revealed dozens and dozens of other cadets in impeccable uniform (first years, like they were) carrying bags and looks of dread, excitement or dull acceptance.  
This windowless, white building would be their home for the next four years. After that, they’d be expected to make up the next empire. This was what their fathers and mothers had decided for them, and the atmosphere that clung to the air and weighed it down read as if not a great deal of them were quite happy about this fate.  
Or maybe it was just the stored air being pumped into the lower floors. It dried the throat. It would take at least three weeks for the newcomers to get used to it.

“We have orientation in twenty minutes,” Darin informed his two dorm mates, who were pouring over the blueprints that Edgar Pault had forgotten to delete from his son’s datapad. “How much are we going to explore?”

“Whatever seems like it could be of use later,” Hux replied. “You don’t have to come with us if you don’t want to, Subaltyrn. Orientation awaits with beckoning arms on Floor -1.”

“Geez, I was just looking for the easiest place to smoke a cigarra without the smoke alarms going off – what exactly are you looking for?” Trentias asked, eyes narrowed.

“You can’t smoke at the academy. It’s against the rules—”

“I’m not asking for your opinion or permission, AT-AT,” Trentias spat at Darin, returning his attention to Hux. “Don’t make yourself an easy target, Hux. You’ve already got your father looming over you.”

“As do you.”

“Exactly. I don’t want to be here – you already know that. Why can’t we keep our heads down for a week, at the very least?”

“Pault, we’re going to be here for _four years_. Did you plan on keeping your head down for _four years_ had I not been your dorm mate?” Hux asked incredulously, zooming in on the map’s display of the staff dormitories and offices on floor -2.

“Probably! There are people who don’t want to be here, Hux! People who’ll gladly take those feelings out on _us_ when they find out who our fathers are!”

“Well, isn’t it lucky we’re all being taught combat and self-defence then, hm?”

Trentias made an annoyed noise and gave up on trying to convince Hux otherwise. He had little patience for things not going his way, and the emotional restraint of a toddler – however, he could figure out fairly easily that this was not the place to display his fantastic, awful rage.  
Too easy a target, as he had already said.

Hux was about to lament his inexperience in complex rewiring (the elevators and doors could be freed from their time sensitivity, perhaps, with the right hand) when their path was cut short by a group of four older, taller, broader boys. Their uniforms were clean, but showed signs of wear, as did their boots.  
Not first years, then. Older cadets, transferred here from whatever institution had been quietly training them until the new academies had been built. Young men hungry to establish dominance in a new playing field.

Wonderful, Hux thought sarcastically.

“Well, well, well. Look’it we got here, boys,” one of them proclaimed, dark hair shaved to a buzzcut and – Hux thought amusedly to himself – a damning lack of facial hair except for a few whispers above his lips. “Les’ee – speckles, blondie and AT-AT, all present and accounted for.”

The other three seemed to find these nicknames hilarious, as they burst out in loud, booming laughter. Trentias looked vaguely annoyed that his name for Darin had been hijacked; the latter looked absolutely terrified despite basically matching their aggressors in height.  
Hux looked bored. He was bored.

“Wonderful to make your acquaintances, gentlemen,” he raised his eyebrows. “Now if you’ll excuse us, we’re on our way to Orientation.”

He took a step forward and walked right into Buzzcut’s outstretched palm.

“Where’s your manners, speckles? Don’tcha know you shouldn’t leave a senior officer’s presence until you’re dismissed?”

“Yes, but you’re not a senior officer. You’re a cadet. Just like my company here.”

The senior cadets all lost their jovialities – now, they looked angry. One of them cracked both sets of his knuckles.

“Senior’s a senior, speckles. You don’t leave ‘til I say so,” Buzzcut grabbed Hux by the front of his collar – the datapad went clattering to the floor. “That clear?”

This was not how Hux had envisioned his first day at the academy. He was hoping something like this might have waited until at least day three.  
He really hoped, in between bracing himself to be punched, that the blueprint holos hadn’t been damaged when the datapad fell.

It all happened very fast – Buzzcut swung his fist just as Darin shoved Trentias to one side, grabbed Hux around the middle and pulled him back, hard. As a result of the force he had thrown into the punch all landing, well, nowhere, Buzzcut was carried forwards by his own strength (and shock), landing unceremoniously face first on the floor.

“You landed on my datapad, you big kriffing idiot!” Trentias shrieked. “The blueprints—!”

One of the older cadets produced knuckledusters from his pants pocket. Trentias went as white as a sheet.

“—are not that important! _Run_!”

The young Pault and Darin, with Hux still in his arms, turned tail and ran as fast as their legs would take them back towards their dorm room with the senior cadets in pursuit. This included Buzzcut, who had managed to pick himself up from the ground and wipe the blood from under his nose.  
He didn’t look happy.

Hux flailed in Darin’s hold, also not looking particularly happy.

“Let me down! I can run myself, for kriff’s sake! Why are we running away?!”

“He was gonna punch you!” Darin told him, as if this weren’t already painfully obvious. “I couldn’t just let you get punched!”

“And you think running away is going to make them want to punch us less?! Let me _down_!”

“I promise I’ll let you down as soon as we’ve gotten back to our dorm room!”

As much as Hux struggled, Darin was indeed well-muscled and as strong as he was tall. All he could do was pinch the bridge of his nose and wait for this entire fiasco to come to an end.  
The three of them skidded into room 367B, having gained a little distance from their pursuers (whilst they waited for Buzzcut to recover), and hit the door button behind them. Darin then, finally, released Hux from his grip.

“Why did you bother coming back here?!”

“So we can lock the door and hide until they leave! Was that not obvious?!” Trentias snapped.

“The doors don’t kriffing lock until curfew, you idiots!”

The grim realisation settled into Darin and Trentias whilst the heavy footsteps of the older cadets began to grow louder and louder.

“The refresher!” Trentias said, hysterical. “The refresher door locks!”

Hux protested as he was shoved into the refresher alongside Darin. Trentias quickly hit the close and lock keys on the door pad, which relayed the commands to the door mech – it did indeed slide close and lock with an efficient sounding click.  
Darin and Trentias took a few moments to catch their breath, the former placing his hands on his knees and making some sort of weak noise of relief.

“Uhm... are you guys my dorm mates?”

The three of them turned to find a dark skinned youth with messy chocolate curls and big brown eyes, a toothbrush hanging out of his mouth and a confused expression on his face.

“You guys... this is your refresher, ya?” he spoke again. “You don’t just jump into any refresher you find or something?”

“This is our refresher!” Trentias confirmed, eyes suddenly widening. “And you! This is perfect!”

He took the newcomer by the shoulders.

“You go out there for a second – if a group of big, angry looking senior cadets come trampling in here looking for us, tell us none of your dorm mates have arrived yet! Okay?”

“What—?”

Curls had no time to even digest what was being asked of him before Trentias opened the door, shoved him outside into the dorm room and closed it again afterwards.  
Now all they had to do was play the waiting game.

“This is kriffing stupid—”

Trentias shushed Hux’s complaint before it could be finished. The walls were fairly soundproofed, but neither he nor Darin were prepared to take any chances at this point.

Outside, the senior cadets had indeed stormed into the room, one still brandishing knuckledusters, Buzzcut still with traces of now drying blood under his nose.  
The emptiness of the room definitely threw all four of them.

“Hey,” Curls gave them a meek wave, stretching the word’s only vowel. “Are you guys my dorm mates?”

“Do we look like your dorm mates, kriff head?” Buzzcut spat. Curls furrowed his brow.

“No need to get snappy, man. You walk into my dorm, I assume you’re my dorm mates. You can see how I’d think that, ya? ‘Cause you’re all here?”

The older cadets stared Curls down for a dozen or so seconds. The former still had a toothbrush hanging from his mouth.

“I don’t want any trouble,” he gestured to the cadet with knuckledusters. “I just got here, you know? I can barely find my way around yet, and my dorm mates haven’t arrived yet so it’s kinda weird, being here by myself.”

Another pause.

“Unless you guys really are my dorm mates, and this is a prank? That’d be funny.”

Curls wondered how his actual dorm mates had already managed to have knuckleduster armed seniors chasing them down. Then he wondered how these cadets managed to get a pair of knuckledusters into the academy when there was a zero-weapons policy outside of the required classes.

Finally, Buzzcut made an irritated sound and gestured for his group to move out.

“C’mon. They can’t be far from here.”

The senior cadets stalked out of the room (one of them mouthed a “Sorry!” at Curls as he exited). As soon as the door had slid closed behind them, he banged on the refresher door.

“You guys? You can come out now.”

Hux emerged first, clearly fuming and arms folded. He gave Curls a polite nod. Trentias and Darin followed not too long afterwards.  
Curls raised an eyebrow at the three.

“What was all that about?”

“Boys who think that punching things is the equivalent of pissing on them to mark one’s territory, that’s what.” Hux replied.

“You antagonised them, _speckles_!” Trentias glared at his dorm mate and somewhat friend. “Now my kriffing datapad’s broken and we probably lost the blueprints!”

Darin watched the two of them argue back and forth (“What? You wanted to stand there and take it?” “What happened to keeping our kriffing heads down?!”) and quietly made his way over to Curls, holding out his hand.

“Uh, I’m Darin. Darin Subaltyrn,” he gestured to his dorm mates. “That’s Armitage Hux and the other one is Trentias Pault.”

“Drathur Elonglass,” he shook Darin’s offered hand. “Nice to meet you outside of the refresher.”

“You guys?” Darin tried to get Hux and Trentias’ attention, but they were well and truly into it. “We, uh, we have Orientation in like, ten minutes...”

 

 

Orientation on Floor -1 was in the academy’s assembly hall, which was – as the rest of the school was – white and metal with sharp corners. It was a huge space with a raised platform at the end to act as a stage, and upon this platform was a podium.  
And standing at that podium before hundreds and hundreds of identically uniformed boys was the principal of Stellulcus Academy, Lieutenant Jillian Nidor, who had indeed been an active lieutenant in the heyday of the Empire. She also used to be Lieutenant Jethro Nidor, a rather stern-faced, square-jawed and heavily browed man.  
Now she was a stern-faced, square-jawed and heavily browed woman, with dark red hair pinned back into the galaxy’s tightest looking bun.

Nobody had treated her any differently since she had transitioned. Lieutenant Nidor had a reputation for holding still-hot laser blasters near the forced open eyeballs of her enemies whilst they were her prisoners, in her days of active work to the Empire.  
Nobody wanted to be the next victim of such notorious treatment.

Lieutenant Nidor was also a woman of few, blunt words. She was not made for delivering speeches to encourage adolescent boys to enjoy their four years on a planet subject to asteroid showers every three days or so, and then go and reclaim Republican space after those four years were up.

“There is glory to be grasped, gentlemen,” she told them, posture impeccable, wearing a military coat covered in medals. “Glory and order that your fathers and grandfathers fought hard to obtain. There is such a thing as too much freedom, and that is called chaos. The New Republic stripped the Core Worlds and Inner Rim of order, chased your families from their homes and have installed a unorganised government of chaos.”

Hux took this time to make a scan of the academy staff that stood in a line behind the Lieutenant’s podium. He recognised a few of them as friends of his father’s, men who he’d seen at Ark Trellis whilst he did his best to get along with a petulant Trentias Pault.  
Men who he knew, even as a child, he would not want to have to see every day for the next four years. But this was how things had worked out for him, and he would have to make the best of them. One could make allies of enemies in trying times, such as isolation on the planet Stellulcus.

Hux thought about how his companions – his dorm mates – would get along with him as time went on. If they would be useful or not. There were only four of them, still, and each dorm had a minimum capacity of five. He wondered who he had yet to meet.  
Trentias was Trentias – his family connections and access to what went on behind the scenes would be the only really interesting thing Hux would be able to get out of him. Otherwise, he was finicky and whiny and would likely have the spirit crushed out of him by the academy.  
Darin evidently had a protective streak, judging by his actions earlier. He was definitely the biggest of them, and seemed to have nothing but good intentions. Hux wondered how he’d fare here with such a good heart.  
Drathur was still fairly new to him, but he was easy on the eyes and seemed compliant enough in making sure the rest of them didn’t get the kriff beaten out of them earlier by the senior cadets. A pretty boy – especially in an environment of female starved adolescent men – could prove incredibly valuable.

And the as of yet unknown player number five. Not somebody completely useless, Hux hoped.

“... There is no reason that we cannot reclaim what was once ours. There is no reason that, once again, a foolish Republic should not crumble when we return. You are the future, gentlemen. You will be the sparks that fan the flames of a new order. A new empire,” Lieutenant Nidor cleared her throat and, seemingly satisfied, nodded. “A new empire that will crush chaos and restore stability in this galaxy!”

Although they had not been given the direct order to do so, the cadets erupted in whooping and applause. The lieutenant didn’t seem to mind this, and looked rather pleased with the reaction.

Aside from Orientation, the standard timetabled day at the academy didn’t begin until the next day, so the cadets were free to get to know the building a little before being thrown into classes and practicals and reveille at zero-five-thirty hours.  
But for now, several hundred boys were to make their way into various mess halls in order to eat – thankfully, for Hux, Trentias and Darin – sorted by age and year. They’d be in a gaggle of their own kind, then. All of the newcomers. A storm of panicked fifteen year olds, wondering how bad the food would be and if it would get any better over the next four years.

The cadets of 367B found each other in the sea of uniforms and made their way back to floor -4, where their mess hall was located in the middle section with the common rooms.

“My dad told me that Lieutenant Nidor was a man,” Darin said to the others, looking confused and scratching the back of his head. “that he was one of the most feared members of the Empire, and that any members of the Rebel armies would blab any secrets once they found out they were in his grasp.”

“The galaxy’s changing too fast for AT-AT.” Trentias laughed.

“It’s—it’s not that! I just thought—my dad said that—” Darin’s face had flushed dramatically. “I don’t care what gender the Lieutenant is! She’s in charge either way!”

“What, do you have a thing for dominating women, AT-AT?”

“Stop calling me that!”

Drathur fell into step with Hux whilst Trentias and Darin had their back-and-forth. Hux managed to give the new boy a quick onceover before he was spoken to.

“Armitage Hux,” he started, voice warm with the lilt of an accent Hux didn’t quite recognise. “As in Brendol Hux? Or am I wrong?”

“No, you’re right. There aren’t many people named Hux who aren’t directly related to me in some fashion.”

“Does that make things easier or more difficult for you while you’re here?”

“Only one way to find out, though I have a feeling it’ll be the latter.”

“Should’ve guessed that myself, actually – we _did_ meet while you were hiding from a bunch of older guys with knuckledusters and all,” Drathur laughed a little. “I’m not gonna get beaten up if I keep hanging out with you, will I?”

“Hopefully not. Believe me, I’m trying to avoid any conflict that isn’t set up as a practical exam. Your accent’s not one I’m familiar with. Might I ask where you’re from?”

“Yeah, I get that a lot,” Drathur merely shrugged, curls bobbing up and down with the motion. “I’m from Do’liith. Way out in Wild Space, ya? Not many people have heard of it.”

Hux had indeed heard of Do’liith, which was fairly far into Wild Space, exactly as Drathur had said it was. Probably further than most Empire families had fled to.  
It was a oceanic planet – ninety nine percent of its surface was water – made up of five small island communities and huge shanty towns built out on the water from pieces of crashed crafts and any kind of metals, really, that the inhabitants could get to float.

“Your family weren’t Empire supporters, were they?”

“Nah. I’ve lived on Do’liith for my entire life, and so have pretty much all of my ancestors. You don’t get off of Do’liith that easily, you know?” Drathur replied. “But you guys came recruiting all over the place, and my mama said that I should go. She wanted me to see the rest of the world, because she knows she never will.”

He smiled, but it was a little sad.

“Like I said, you don’t get off of Do’liith that easily. There’s barely enough space to land crafts in the first place, and the entire planet is pretty much undrinkable water. It’s pretty, but it’s not practical.”

“... You’ve joined the military just to get off of your home planet?”

“Mhm. I’ve never been this close to the Rim, or the Core Worlds. I’ve barely stood on a ground that doesn’t bob by the water’s will.”

There was a part of Hux that wanted to scoff and scold – to say that Drathur had hijacked a cause for his own gain. Do’liith had never seen war. All it had seen were the ruins of crafts that made their way into the planet’s atmosphere and hurtling towards the water.  
There was not a single piece of him that would be ready for the reality of warfare. The violence. The bloodshed. The stink of death hanging in the air, pairs upon pairs upon pairs of glassy, unseeing eyes.

A deeper part of Hux still thought Drathur would surely die. Maybe even before he graduated the academy. He will have seen only one other planet aside from his home.

But another part of him admired the boy’s bravery. What had he been told by the recruiters who had scoured the Unknown Regions and Wild Space, looking for young men and women willing to die for a cause they might not have even heard of?  
What had they told Drathur’s mother that convinced her to urge him away from home, possibly never to return? Or to return in a coffin?

You’ll probably die, boy. But you’ll see further than this globe of water. What do you say?

“Well,” Hux finally said. “You’re not terribly close to the Core Worlds, in actuality, but I suppose this is indeed legitimately the closest you’ve been. The Unknown Regions and Wild Space haven’t been completely mapped out yet. It’s difficult to tell.”

“You know what?” Drathur’s smile was wide and almost ( _almost_ ) infectious. “The ship I was on was going forwards. So I’m closer, ya? Definitely.”

Hux just about held himself back from explaining how there was no real forwards in terms of space travel, and instead settled for simply repeating, “Definitely.”.

The mess hall was exactly what the four of them were expecting – a huge space filled with endless rows of picnic styled tables (white and made of metal, of course) and a canteen taking up an entire side of the room, with an already building line of young, hungry cadets.  
Trentias visibly paled at Darin’s side – the Paults were notoriously wealthy, whether they were within the Core Worlds or not.  
This was new territory. New, horrifying territory.

Trentias Pault would still hate this four years later.

“Pull yourself together, Pault,” Hux remarked upon seeing his ghostly face. “the more difficult aspect will be finding somewhere to sit where the other occupants aren’t irritating.”

“Actually,” Darin spoke up. “it’s definitely gonna be the food.”

Drathur was enthusiastic about trying new cuisine – all they ate on Do’litth was fish, seaweed and fruit. This enthusiasm would unfortunately prove counterproductive as the radical change in diet would make him violently sick.  
Unlike Trentias Pault’s issue, Drathur Elonglass would get over this within four years.

Whilst waiting in line for whatever slop masquerading as food would be dumped on his plate and served to him, Hux noticed a group sitting at a table near the canteen line in hushed conversation. They looked worried. Nervous.  
A quick examination of the situation revealed that no, they weren’t talking about him (good). They would hardly be concerned about the presence of Trentias ‘has-never-used-a-canteen-before’ Pault, either.

Someone else, then. Someone else who had brought a reputation with them.

“Hey, kid,” the man behind the canteen glass said impatiently. “You eating or what?”

Hux removed his eyes from the whispering cadets just in time to have a scoop of something dropped on to his plate. The canteen worker ushered him on. Lots of cadets to feed.  
On closer inspection, it looked like stew. Stew not quite liquid enough to belong in a bowl, evidently. Still, there was more to be had yet.  
The rest of his tray was filled with a small bowl of salad, a bowl of rehydrated fruit and an as of yet unidentified dairy product in a pot. It was white. It certainly smelled like dairy.

“Really? You wanna sit as close to the canteen as possible? I don’t want to see whatever animal this... white stuff came out of.” Trentias whined when Hux sat at the table next to the hushed conversation. The blonde rolled his eyes but sat down nonetheless.  
They were soon joined by Darin and Drathur (who was looking at his stew like it was a delicate, beautiful creature that couldn’t be handled roughly).

“I thought you’d be a ‘back of the mess hall’ kind of guy, I’ll be honest.” Darin said to Hux, seemingly unconcerned by the mysterious dairy product and swallowing a spoonful of it.

“I am,” Hux confirmed. “Trying to eavesdrop. This is otherwise an awful table, location-wise.”

“I knew it! Nothing’s ever just-because with you!” Trentias said, glancing at the table next to them and dropping the volume of his voice. “Why? What are they talking about?”

“I might be able to find out if you stop talking at me, Pault.”

“Kriff off. Watch this.”

Trentias stood up from his seat and walked over to the head of the table beside them. The cadets dropped their conversation and looked up with questioning eyes.

“Whaddaya you want?” one of them asked suspiciously. “This table’s full, blondie.”

There was that unoriginal nickname again. Trentias inwardly scowled, but kept up an approachable exterior. If his father had taught him anything, it was all men could be bought.  
Boys were no exception to the rule, as they were essentially men-in-training.

“You guys look like you’re talking about something interesting,” he shrugged, acting as casually as he could. “And I have a pack of cigarras I’m just _dying_ to give away.”

All of the cadets at the table exchanged looks. Who’d crack first, who’d crack first, who’d crack—

“Did you hear about the DiGarza family?” a cadet with blonde curls said to him, ushering him a little closer. “Apparently the Republican forces finally cracked down on them and arrested them all.”

“Really? After all this time?”

“Mhm. They’re all going to jail, I guess. Except the ones who are too young to go there. There’s six kids between all of the members of the DiGarza family,” the cadet continued. “Most of them are going to other family members out in the Unknown Regions. You know, less _infamous_ ones. But...”

He swallowed hard, glancing around nervously. This did little to easy Trentias’ now worried thoughts.

“Word is that one of them’s _here_.”

“Keep your damn voice down!” another of the cadets whispered frantically. “You don’t know who could be listening!”

“Shuddup! You’re just jealous you’re not getting cigarras and I am!”

“Guys?” Trentias intervened. “Can we refocus here?”

“Right,” blonde curls shot a glare to his shusher. “anyway – he’s apparently the grandson of the family patriarch, but since all of the older men are probably in jail now, he’s technically head of the family.”

“There’s a kriffing _gang leader_ in our academy!” another one squeaked quietly. “He’s too young to send to jail, but none of the safer family members want him because of the crown he basically bears now!”

“So those family members sent him _here_ ,” shusher added. “Four years of military training in the hopes that it’ll change his mind or something, make him want to be a soldier more than a crimelord.”

“So what you’re saying,” Trentias recapped aloud. “is that the next leader of the DiGarza family is _here_. Right _here_. Right _here_ in this academy with all of us for the next four years?”

The group of cadets at the table nodded.

“Right. Okay. Okay,” he tossed the pack of cigarras he had in his pocket on to the table. “thanks for that.”

Trentias made his way back over to his own table, sitting down beside Hux silently and exhaling. He really wished he hadn’t given up that pack of cigarras.

“Well?” Hux asked. “What did they tell you?”

“... You know the DiGarza family?”

Hux and Darin nodded. Drathur shook his head no in between mouthfuls of stew.

“The DiGarzas are a... they’re a crime family. A gang. They have a bunch of highly valued smuggling routes between the Core Worlds – weaponry, drugs, information – they could get anything in or out, even though the law enforcement is the strongest within the Core. And they protected these routes with everything they had,” Trentias explained. “A lot of rumours and gossip went around about the stuff they did to people who messed around with them, or threatened them; they’d break your legs or pull out your teeth, o-or they’d go after your family. You get it, they’re scary. They’ve been pretty much untouchable for the last two decades – during the beginning of the end for the Empire, people said that Palpatine left them alone because they’d leak Rebel Alliance information and attack any Rebel crafts near their routes.”

Drathur furrowed his brow.

“... Who’s Palpatine?”

“The kriffing _Emperor_ of the _Empire_!”

“He’s from Do’liith, Pault,” Hux interjected. “They’re far enough from the Core to not know about these kinds of things.”

“... What the kriff is _Do’liith_?”

“There was a government ruling over the Inner Rim and Core Worlds called the Empire, and Emperor Palpatine was the, uh, the guy in charge. The highest ranking member,” Darin explained to Drathur. “But recently, a rebellion rose up and destroyed the Empire, and they drove all of our families from our homes. Now the Core Worlds and the Inner Rim are all lawless and chaotic. My dad says people are gonna start killing each other because there’s no one to stop them now.”

“That’s why we’re here – to be the army of the new empire,” Hux added. “Or at least, that’s the end goal.”

“Right,” Drathur nodded. “I don’t think we really have anything like that on Do’liith. Communities just solve their problems together.”

“Can I _please_ continue?” Trentias asked, irritated. He took their silence as a yes. “When the Republic took over the Core and Inner Rim, the DiGarzas didn’t have their protection anymore. They were recently all arrested, and they’re all going to jail.”

“Well, yeah, that’s probably the right thing to do. They _are_ criminals, after all—”

“ _AT-AT!_ Not done yet! The children of the DiGarza family – the ones too young to be arrested – were all sent to stay with extended family in the Unknown Regions. Except for one,” Trentias continued. “He’s the grandson of the family patriarch and the only currently eligible heir to their empire – and their _enemies_ , which is why the extended families shipped him off—”

“Here,” Hux finished for him. “Right?”

“The head of the DiGarza family is _here_. He’s _here_ , Hux!” Trentias sounded panicked. “Probably against his will, and would gladly pull out the teeth of the sons of the men responsible for his _prison_!”

“Oh man, that is pretty unnerving,” Darin said. “You really think he’ll beat you guys up?”

“He will _pull our teeth out_! Did you not hear me the first time?!”

Hux raised his eyebrows in interest at the concept – the young heir of one of the most powerful gang families in the Core was here, of all places.  
It was strange and wonderful, the way things lined up at times.

“So what’s gonna happen to you guys?” Drathur addressed Hux and Trentias. “I mean, it’s not like you guys sent him here, or your papas, right? There’s no reason for him to have bad blood with you, ya?”

“Drathur, man, I think you have too much hope in people. No, uh, no offense.” Darin said.

“Elonglass is right. DiGarza has no real reason to want to cut us all open, unless he really is feeling very cheated by his situation,” Hux chewed on a rehydrated cranberry, swallowed, and continued. “What a fledgling gang leader will want to do, however, is establish dominance. And I doubt many will be keen to get in his way, not even the _charming_ senior cadets we met earlier.”

“You think he’ll really want to be like that after what happened to his family?” Drathur asked softly. “Maybe he wants to be different.”

“... Yeah, AT-AT was right about you, buddy. Way too much hope in people,” Trentias said, then looking to Hux. “The gears in your head are turning, aren’t they?”

“Everybody is obviously frightened of the mere idea of DiGarza being here. He’s not going to make friends easily, but if we approach him as a friendly party—”

“He establishes dominance and nobody kriffs with us,” Trentias definitely understood Hux’s idea, because it was an incredibly Hux-esque idea. “ _If_ he doesn’t want to pull our teeth out.”

“Yes, yes – if he doesn’t want to pull our teeth out.”

 

 

Markus DiGarza was only fifteen years old when his immediate family were taken away from him, and he had been sixteen for a week when his less immediate family decided they didn’t want the risk that came with hosting the heir to the DiGarza crime family.  
A military academy would be good for a boy like him, they decided. Teach him order, teach him how social hierarchies work outside of a government that would allow his family to get away with murder. Literally.

More importantly, it would take the target away from their heads, and the heads of his younger cousins, who had no idea what their fathers, mothers, aunts, uncles and grandparents had been getting up to. They didn’t deserve to face the consequences of being related to the people they were related to.  
Markus was apparently the exception to this rule.

Lieutenant Nidor was sceptical about accepting the boy into the academy at first – his social status would wreak havoc on the rest of the building. Everybody would have an opinion about him, be it good or bad. It would have consequences.  
And the boy had seen a lot of things. Things a boy his age probably shouldn’t have seen. He had experienced firsthand what happens when a governing figure, one meant to represent the highest order and law, went a little crooked in order to get their way.

Markus DiGarza was a wildcard. But the DiGarza family had served the Empire (even if they were constantly breaking laws right under their noses) right until the very end. They had captured and tortured information out of rebels. They had destroyed their crafts, or hijacked them in order to find rebel territories.  
Lieutenant Nidor accepted Markus DiGarza into Stellulcus Academy, in a way, to thank his family for what they had done for the Empire.  
She may have been a woman of few, blunt words, and she may have burned the eyeballs of her enemies with still-hot laser blasters, but she could also see right through the boy’s aggressive, dismissive facade.

She could see a boy who was alone, a target of dozens upon dozens of people in the galaxy, and was rejected by the family who were supposed to take care of him.  
Nobody would come looking for Markus DiGarza on asteroid battered Stellulcus.

He was not exactly a boy who could seamlessly blend into the crowds of cadets once he put a uniform on. He was heavily tattooed from his waist to the top of his neck, which the required shirt collar in the academy would definitely not cover up, in every kind of symbol and hidden code and DiGarza staple one could imagine – ranging from interweaving patterned lines to intricate pieces that looked like paintings.  
The prettier ones tended to be the ones that would get you arrested. They were the DiGarza Ladies of Luck portraits – four in total – and every member of the DiGarza family had them etched into their skin as soon as they were considered a valuable ‘asset’ to the business.

Markus had his done at age thirteen, when he spat at Republican officials asking for the DiGarza family’s cooperation.

Lieutenant Nidor could not promise Markus that his family would be released when the new order took back the Core and Inner Rim from the Republic – criminals were still criminals, after all.

“Fine,” Markus told her. “then I’ll just have to become your new Emperor or somethin’ and get them out myself.”

This, in the Lieutenant’s eyes, was promising potential and a drive to succeed, and allowed Markus to leave her office and settle into his dorm room.

Although a great majority of the cadets were still in the mess hall eating not-quite-liquid stew and a mystery dairy product, there were a few stragglers in the corridors who backed away and whispered when Markus made his way to the lower floors. Anyone who was stupid enough not to get out of the way was shoved without remorse.

Markus DiGarza was a man-in-training of little remorse. A leader-in-training. An emperor-in-training. He was going to do as his father, and his father before him did best – rule without rank, through power and bribery and fear.  
This academy, he supposed, would have to do as his first piece of turf.

Hitting the door control panel of his room once he had reached it, Markus found the rest of his dorm mates absent. Still at the mess hall, then. Nothing in the room particularly gave away anything about them – most of the bags on bunks had yet to be unpacked.  
He scanned the ceiling of the room, made a hum of indeterminate expression, climbed up the middle set of bunk beds and smashed the smoke alarm he had managed to locate in less than seven seconds.

DiGarzas smoked wherever they wanted to.

Soon, he’d settle into these new surroundings. He’d let his reputation run amok all over every cadet in the building, and let their infectious fear of him spread to the staff. He didn’t even need all of them under his thumb – he just needed them to do what the Empire had done for his father and grandfather.  
To turn a blind eye when he needed to get things done.

Markus wondered, as he flopped down on to the pillow of one of the beds in dorm room 367B, if smuggling routes could work within an academy on a planet that was battered by asteroids every three days or so.  
They did. Very well. He would find this out over the next four years.

Markus DiGarza was the as of yet unknown player number five of 367B.  
It was strange and wonderful, the way things lined up at times.


	2. Friendship is an Unruly Vessel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux is determined to befriend Markus DiGarza, even if it kills him.  
> It very nearly does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey hey! Long time no update! I've been going through the most hellish writer's block but I DID IT. HERE IS CHAPTER TWO OF PART ONE. The next few pieces of this series will probably be one-shots, but honestly, it's nearly 2:30AM and my mind is... not here right now.  
> I might add more notes later, but for now, I hope y'all enjoy this update. I'm gonna sleep for a thousand years.
> 
> Lemme know if there's huge spelling errors, by the way. I have no beta reader. Don't leave me lookin' foolish on this distinguished website.
> 
> talk dirty to me on tumblr: http://bowdowntomama.tumblr.com

_**\+ Stellulcus Academy, Unknown Regions, approx 15 ABY +** _

 

“Hey there.”

Trentias Pault very nearly shrieked upon returning to dorm room 367B with Armitage Hux, Darin Subaltyrn and Drathur Elonglass and finding a stranger who was very obviously Markus DiGarza lying on the bunk bed directly above his own, a lit cigarra hanging from the corner of his mouth which was curled into an amused half-smile.

“You must be the group o’ men I’ll have the great privilege of sleepin’ in the same room as for the next couple’a years,” he said, sitting up and giving the group a onceover. “Name’s Markus. Markus DiGarza.”

There was a collective pause. Markus was loving every second of it.

“Darin Subaltyrn,” the tallest of the group raised his hand as if he were addressing an authority figure. “Uh, you know it’s against academy rules to smo—”

“Trentias Pault!” the blonde introduced himself loudly whilst elbowing Darin in the stomach. “So nice to meet you, Markus! Can I call you Markus? Is that okay?”

Markus regarded him briefly, scoffing, and then looked to Hux and Drathur expectantly. Hux wished he could punch Trentias in his stupid, pointy face until he never spoke again, because he had pretty much handed Markus the advantage of letting him know he was scared shitless of him.

Allowing him to establish dominance was indeed part of the plan, but Hux did not plan on being walked all over like this. He wasn’t going to lie down and let himself be bullied by a brute.  
No. Markus could have his way with the rest of them, if they wanted it that way.  
He would not have such an easy time with Armitage Hux.

“Drathur Elonglass,” he stepped past the rest of them and walked right over to the bedside, holding his hand up to the top bunk. “You’re our last dorm mate, ya? It’s good to finally meet you.”

After a beat, Markus shook the hand offered to him, grinning.

“Yeah. I like this guy! I like this guy,” his eyes landed on Hux. “And whadda ‘bout you, huh? You’ve been awful quiet over there.”

“Why don’t you come down here,” Hux didn’t break his gaze once. “so that I can introduce myself to you, DiGarza?”

“Hux—!”

“Shut up, Pault. I’m sure he can use his legs. Right?”

The redhead quirked one side of his mouth upwards whilst Markus mulled over the proposition. Trentias looked like he was ready to pass out. Darin cleared his throat to fill the now suffocating silence that had taken a hold of the dormitory.

Finally, Markus swung his legs over the side of the bed and dropped down in one swift, noisy movement to the floor, brushing himself down before striding over to face Hux.  
He got close. Very close. He looked bigger up close – although he wasn’t as tall as Darin – and at this proximity, Hux could see the dark hairs and tattoos on his olive skin where his uniform sleeves were pushed up (which was a uniform violation; he was surprised Darin hadn’t pointed it out yet) and feel his breath reaching his face.

“What’s your name, then?” he asked, well and truly in Hux’s personal bubble.

“Armitage Hux.”

“Armitage Hux,” Markus repeated, testing the syllables on his tongue. He took a drag of his cigarra and exhaled a thick cloud of smoke in Hux’s direction. “You know what, Armitage Hux?”

“I won’t until you tell me, DiGarza.”

A tense pause.  
Markus clapped a hand on Hux’s shoulder and leaned in even closer to his person.

“I think you’re my _favourite_ ,” he laughed afterwards, low and smooth, and pulled away to look at the others. “Not to discredit the rest’a you fine gentlemen or nothin’.”

“No, uh, that’s okay.” Darin said, still as rigid as a wooden board. Trentias had barely spoken at all since he’d introduced himself, but he managed a nervous laugh.

Hux, on the other hand, was inwardly ecstatic. Well – getting into Markus DiGarza’s good books had turned out to be a lot easier than he had expected. Maybe the young heir wasn’t interested in crushing everyone around him with ease.  
Maybe he wanted a challenge. Or a friend. More than likely the former. Still, Hux remained cautious in case the easy friendship was a ruse, and Markus was simply waiting to crush him when he wasn’t expecting it.

“Alright,” he pushed past each of them towards the door. “I’m goin’ out. See you boys later.”

“Wait, where? You, uh, you can’t leave the academy building without permission..!” Darin called after him in vain – the door had already shut again. Trentias let out the breath he had been holding for quite some time, eyes wide.

“ _I’m sleeping right underneath the mob boss!_ ” he shrieked, dragging hands down both sides of his face. “Why _me_?! “

“It’ll be okay. He seems pretty nice, ya?” Drathur put a hand on one of Pault’s completely unrelaxed shoulders – an act he’d normally despise, but allowed due to his current crisis.

“I mean, uh, you wouldn’t let _me_ have your upper bunk earlier—”

“ _Shut up_ , AT-AT!”

“Subaltyrn’s right – you wouldn’t give up your bunk. Face the consequences like a big boy for a change, Pault,” Hux said dismissively. “I’m more concerned as to what DiGarza’s up to on his lonesome as we speak.”

“Maybe he’s just getting something to eat?” Drathur asked. “He was real nice to us, guys – maybe he’s turning over a new leaf.”

“What is your definition of ‘ _real_ ’ nice?!” Trentias asked incredulously.

“I’m going to follow him.”

The other dorm mates all looked to Hux as soon as the words had left his mouth.

“What are you going to do?” Darin asked, a worried expression on his face. “What if he notices you and gets mad? Should I come with you in case, uh, you nearly get hit again?”

“No, Subaltyrn. You don’t need to do that again. Ever,” Hux headed towards the door control and activated it. “Besides, you heard the man – I’m his favourite.”

 

 

Stellulcus Academy was huge and white and metal, with sharp corners. The uniforms of the attending cadets were also white, as were the sentry bots who patrolled the hallways after curfew to make sure nobody was awake after the automatic lockdown at ten.  
Markus wasn’t overly fond of the colour white. Too clean. Too bright. Always noticeable to a boy who had lived his life in relative murkiness.

There was no murkiness within the Academy – or maybe he just hadn’t found it yet. This was what he was currently seeking out. A murky spot to be in as often as possible. A base outside of the prying eyes of his dorm mates.  
They weren’t all completely useless. The tall one and the blonde one would be easy enough to boss around, and the curly-headed one was far too kind for his own good.

But the redhead? He’d take work. Maybe he’d prove a useful asset before being squashed, and hopefully afterwards, too.

His train of thought was interrupted by his eyes catching sight of something on the floor – it looked like a datapad, except very muchso smashed.  
Markus made an interested noise and got down on his hunkers to finger through the fairly sizeable pieces of debris. Most of the actual machine itself was intact, but the screen was spider-webbed and wires and power cells were hanging out of place.

He’d spent a lot of his childhood watching uncles and cousins and _honorary members_ of the family reworking stolen datapads – wiping memory chips and erasing any trace of the machines once having previous owners – before selling them on as new products at somewhat inflated prices. Markus wondered if he’d be able to fix the thing. Maybe there’d be questionable pornographic holos he could blackmail the owner with.  
Or just normal, free pornography. He felt like he wouldn’t be seeing a lot of it over the next four years.

He carefully gathered the machine and pieces together – a few safe paces behind him, Hux followed the heir silently, biting his lip in mild concern as soon as what was definitely Trentias Pault’s datapad – full of maps and blueprints of the entire academy – fell into the hands of someone who probably wanted as many legs-up as he could in order to have the entire place on its knees.  
If Hux managed to get in Markus’ good books, this could prove infinitely useful. If things went south, however, this would probably be as big of a disadvantage against him as he could get.

Things could _not_ go south, Hux decided there and then. Maybe later. Not now.

During the mere seconds that he had dedicated to his thoughts and not to the chase, Hux then noticed something: Markus had vanished.  
No. No _way_. He had _not_ been distracted for that long.  
Where could he have gone to in such a short space of time? There wasn’t even a trail of frightened looking cadets to follow because most of them were still in the mess hall. Either he had headed for the common area of Floor -4 or he had taken the stairwell. Hux hadn’t picked up any sort of particular pattern or location from Markus whilst trailing him.

Come on, Armitage. Think.

It would be quicker to check the stairwell – all he’d have to listen for were footsteps, right? If he heard nothing, he could simply turn back and scout the common area. Fine.  
The door controls to the stairwell opened and Hux stepped in almost cautiously (something he internally berated himself for doing), eyes and ears on high alert.

The door closed behind him. It was utterly, unnervingly quiet.

That was why being yanked to one side by the arm and having his mouth covered by a hand made him cry out in alarm – a sound rendered useless and muffled by the aforementioned hand. The hand belonged to a tattooed arm with sleeves rolled up to the elbows.  
Ah. Perhaps Hux was not as good as trailing as he’d thought.

“Heya, Crimson,” Markus’ voice came from behind him. “for the red hair. Geddit? I’m a nicknames kinda guy. Crimson alright with you?”

Hux did not dignify this with a nod or shake of the head.

“Suddenly not so barky, are ya? Why you tailing me, Crimson?”

Hux was very, very tempted to spit into Markus’ hand, but had to remind himself at least three times that he was trying to earn his friendship, not completely ruin the chances of it ever happening. He made a gesture with his eyes towards the fact that he was effectively muzzled, and Markus slowly moved his hand.

“That datapad,” he started. “it belongs to Pault. I was looking for it but you found it first.”

“You’re a bad liar, Crimson.”

Kriff. Okay.

“Fine. I was following you, but I wasn’t lying about the datapad. Pault’s father funded the new academies,” Hux explained, trying to ignore the pain of Markus’ grip on his arm. “There’s blueprints in that thing. Maps.”

“Really? I’m sharing a bunk with the guy who’s dad built my educational prison, eh?” Hux could hear the smile around Markus’ words. It was not a kind sort of smile. “That’s interestin’. Real interestin’. I’m actually pretty good at tinkering with these kinds of things, you know? Maybe I can help you put this thing back together, and we can look at the maps.”

Okay. Okay. This wasn’t too bad.

“What did you plan on doin’ with the maps, Crimson? Your screechin’ friend doesn’t seem like the type with a backbone, so I doubt he’s the one looking for a hidey-hole.”

“He was looking for somewhere to smoke, actually. You seem to have solved that problem back in the dorm room, however.”

“What can I say? I’m not so good at followin’ rules, and I gotta eye for certain kinds a’ electionics and how they can be taken care of, if needs be.”

There was an odd pause in their conversation before Markus continued.

“Wanna ask you something, Crimson.”

“You have permission.”

“Heh. You’re real funny,” the heir actually managed a chuckle, then returned to a strangely serious tone of voice. “You scared of me, Crimson?”

“No.”

“Sure about that?”

“Why? Would you like it if I was?”

“You know what? I dunno. I did say you were my favourite, didn’t I? Maybe I don’t need everyone around me to be pissin’ their pants whenever I show up,” a laugh. “Though don’t take that to mean I dislike it, either.”

Markus finally released Hux’s arm from his grip and gave him a onceover.

“Maybe I like you, Crimson. Might like you even more if you give me the passcode to your friend’s datapad once I fix it up a little.”

“He’s not my friend.”

“Nothin’ wrong with having annoying friends. You embarrassed by him or somethin’?”

“No, it’s just that we’re legitimately not friends.”

“Huh. You seem to have that kinda energy,” a shrug. “but to each his own. I’m gonna need some sorta tape and some screws if we want this to work without shorting out a bunch on us. You think there’s a droid maintenance closet in this hunk of metal somewhere?”

Hux returned the smirk that Markus gave him.

“There’s only one way to find out.”

 

 

The first time Hux had walked through the Academy hallways with a group of fewer than four people had ended with Subaltyrn carrying him away from angry, armed senior cadets and hiding in a refresher. It was not exactly the reputation he had hoped to establish for himself here.  
With Markus DiGarza, however, it was an entirely different story.

If there was any sort of way that he could bottle the sensation he felt right now, keep it, and breathe it in whenever he needed to, _stars_ , he would do it. He would pay anything for it, and then some, because walking through the hallways in Marcus DiGarza’s tow meant being bathed in his publicly predetermined aura of _terror_. Not a single cadet was prepared to challenge the heir in any kind of way, no thank you.  
If he said _move_ , they moved. Markus didn’t seem to think one way or the other about it outwardly, but Hux supposed that maybe there was some sort of depressing aspect to it. Maybe.

He himself would have done anything to be feared the way Markus was.

It turned out there was at least one droid maintenance closet on every floor of the academy, so there would be no shortage of tapes and screws and anything else Markus might need to fix Trentias’ datapad with in order to access the maps.  
The only remaining problem was that each and every one of them was locked and required the appropriate staff keycard to unlock.

“I could try smashing it,” Markus suggested, examining the keycard scanner. “but I don’t think it’ll solve my problems the way it did back in the dorm room. So we need to do the obvious thing and snatch a keycard from one of the staff.”

“We?” Hux repeated. “As in the _two_ of us?”

“It’s a two-man job, Crimson – you distract ‘em and I grab it. I mean, I know you’re not the most talkative of people, or the nicest to talk to,” Markus laughed here. “but I figure you can handle it.”

It was true. Hux had to force a lot of his small talk to friends and business partners of his father’s on Ark Trellis. It came a lot more naturally to Trentias, a small part of him reluctantly admitted, though Hux did suspect that also had something to do with Pault’s sparkling blue eyes and cheekbones and ignorance to the way older men looked at him at times.

“I can do it.”

“Atta boy. Now we just need to find our lucky target.”

It turned out that locating maintenance staff within the Academy only required one to locate any sort of a ruckus. Whilst the younger, newer cadets were busy sorting through timetables and dreading any sort of physical classes they might have the next day, the senior cadets were doing what they had done before they had any sort of proper bases of operations:  
Beating the kriff out of each other, of course.  
There had been no real hierarchy for the senior cadets prior to the academies being built – they were trained in shadowy spots on hideous planets by members of the Empire who missed having troops. Men who were easily overrun as soon as enough of their troops grew upset at the way they were being treated.

This was how hierarchy worked for them, not unlike a pack of wild animals – the strongest was the leader, and the sharpest was his advisor. The stronger one protected the sharper one in exchange for suggestions on how to keep the rest of them loyal.

But buildings and principals and timetables shook this up. There were those who agreed with it, and those who missed the way things were.  
So now they were a divided group, beating the kriff out of each other all over again to elect leaders of these new factions.

Hux sincerely hoped things did not go this way for the group of cadets he was enrolled with over the next four years.

The maintenance staff could be found around fights because both the academy and the uniforms were very white, and the redness of blood stood out if it was not mopped up.  
There were always rumours that the uniform colour had been decided precisely for the reason that blood showed up on it, and that would help identify troublemakers. Boys who had paid attention to how their mothers and fathers washed blood out of clothes would soon become surprisingly in demand, as would cleaning agents made entirely of what a cadet could smuggle from the academy labs.

At least two-thirds of the maintenance staff were on Floor -3, as well as a huge amount of the academy’s security staff. The moment Hux and Markus had exited the stairwell and stepped into what was officially not-their-territory, both could hear raised voices, chanting and the crashing of bodies into furniture.

“Man, I wish I’d gotten this floor. Seems like the place to be.” Markus snorted, gesturing for Hux to follow him.  
Hux was very ready to go to war at the end of all of his time at the academy. He was _still_ not eager to traipse further into Floor -3, but he followed Markus regardless of his feelings.

Gathered a little ways away from the stairwell and hugging the wall were three senior cadets talking to each other in hushed tones. One of them had a blood spatter on his otherwise pristine uniform shirt.  
It wasn’t his blood, judging by the pattern.

“... thought he was going to kill Scherwodtz, honestly. Imagine if the staff had arrived two minutes later. He’d be dead.”

“Think we’d all be dead if they’d arrived later, pal.”

“Wilikers is a kriffing brute. I don’t care if he’s tougher than Scherwodtz, I’m not kriffing feigning awe of him. I’ll tell him myself.”

“Do you want to _die_?”

“All you’d have to do to knock Wilikers off-balance is ask him basic math – I think I can take him.”

The gossiping seniors all paused and turned as soon as Hux and Markus entered their line of sight. They didn’t seem like the types who were looking for a fight – they seemed rather sick of fighting at this point, judging by their jaded expressions – even though one of them clearly had a knife shoved in his uniform pants pocket.

“Wrong floor, fresh meat,” one of them pointed them back towards the stairwell using his thumb. “you don’t wanna be here.”

“Hold on a second, Bethel,” another of them batted his hand out of the way. “No kriffing way. You’re the DiGarza kid. Stars above, we don’t need anyone trouble on this floor right now.”

“Not looking for trouble unless you’re offering it, sweetheart,” Markus winked, which made the senior beside the recipient of such charms choke. “you guys are kinda hoggin’ all the maintenance staff, what with all your beatin’ the kriff outta each other and all. We need one of ‘em back.”

“You expect a lone maintenance staff member to go with _you_? A DiGarza? They’ll think you’re gonna mug them or something,” Bethel scoffed. “Like I said – you don’t wanna be here. Head back down to your little sanctuary and let the older boys... hit each other until they realise it won’t get them any further away from Stellulcus.”

“Why do you need one of them, anyway? They’re a little _busy_ up here.” Sweetheart asked, still not quite able to look Markus in the eyes.

“’Cause I don’t wanna deal with passing first-day-nerves vomit in the hallway every time I wanna get a glass of water from the mess hall,” he lied very effectively to the point where Hux was scolding himself for admiring his skills. “Unless, I mean, this is your strange way of offerin’ to mop it up yourself?”

The three seniors exchanged looks – finally, Pocket-Knife stepped away from the group and whistled loudly in the direction of the common area as he headed into it and out of immediate sight.

“... How long do you reckon it’ll be like this?” Hux spoke up in the midst of a slightly awkward silence (as silent as it could get with all of the background noise, anyway).

“Until they realise that it’s not going to make the staff ship us all back to the sun-starved planets they had us on before,” Bethel sighed wearily. “I don’t kriffing get why they’re complaining about having water to wash in again and, you know, _walls_ around us.”

“You’re never going to understand this,” Sweetheart added. “I really hope you never have to, either, being completely honest. You new cadets have a better chance than any of us ever had. You’ll have leaders. People you’ll be proud to look up to. We didn’t have that, and now all this... well, it’s come a little too late.”

“Unlike the maintenance staff, thank _kriff_.”

It was strange to think about, Hux mused. There were going to be two distinct groups of cadets making up the future Empire – perfectly raised, trained and educated soldiers, equipped for any situation that came their way and able to pilot any sort of craft or war mech they needed; and the slightly older cadets that were raised on knowing when to cut off a head so that the body would thrive rather than die. Cadets who were brutal in combat but lacking elsewhere.

There was a part of him that longed to be trained the way the seniors were. He wished he could be both ways, vicious and educated. But it was exactly as Sweetheart had said – they would never know, or understand, the ways the older cadets had to function in order to even make it this far.

Pocket-Knife returned to the group then, with an incredibly pale-faced, stiff-as-a-board maintenance staff member. The mop bucket he wheeled after him was full of red-stained water.

“Apparently some kid yacked down on Floor -4,” he told the nervous man, giving him a gentle shove in Markus and Hux’s direction. “That’s gotta be better than blood, right?”

All he did was nod. Markus slung an arm around the man’s shoulder and clapped him on the back.

“You’re fightin’ the real war here, eh? You’ll get your medals one day,” he paused to read the nametag on the staff member’s uniform. “Berkins, I promise.”

Berkins looked between Markus and Hux a little nervously as he was led away from Floor -3 and towards the elevators, the three senior students watching them go until the doors shut behind them.

“... We didn’t just send that guy off to get mugged, did we?” Pocket-Knife asked.

“I don’t think so. They don’t seem to be those kinds of cadets,” Sweetheart replied. “Even the DiGarza kid.”

“Oh _please_ – you’re still all pink from being called sweetheart,” Bethel teased, receiving a sharp elbow to the side and managing to laugh through it. “But you know what that means? We can tell Wilikers that if he tries to kriff with us that he’ll have a _DiGarza_ to answer to. This last year of training just got a whole lot easier.”

 

 

Hux admittedly felt a little bad about distracting Berkins in order for Markus to rob him after finding out what the maintenance staff were dealing with on the floor above them, but this was all for a greater cause – they needed to get into the droid maintenance closet for supplies to fix Pault’s datapad (if it could be fixed) and access the maps on it.  
And then he would surely have a place in DiGarza’s good books. That publicly predetermined aura of terror would be his to borrow for the next four years or until he managed to manifest his own. Robbing Berkins was tipping the first domino.

It all happened a lot quicker than he thought it would – one minute Hux was on some long-winded, well memorised tirade about the slavery that still took place on the Core Worlds regardless of this _New Republic’s_ presence (Berkins looked like he was contemplating quitting his job on day one about two minutes into this); and then Markus was jabbing him in the back with the acquired keycard, which was his code for _please wrap this up already_.

“You wouldn’t think it, would you, Berkins? These Rebels come in saying they’re going to change every injustice in the galaxy, but there’s reports of slavery on the moreso Outer Rim planets getting worse and worse every day. There’s no order under the New Republic – it’s the wishy-washy politics of _idealists_ who have no idea what to do with their positions now that they have them,” he gave Berkins a forced but somewhat realistic looking smile. “You’re doing good work here. The New Empire will thank you for your services.”

“... Listen, I’m just here to _clean_ ,” Berkins finally said, his entire psyche radiating weariness. “So just take me to where I’ve gotta go so I can get back to Floor -3. They really need people up there.”

“Sure thing, pal. No problem!”

Markus clapped his shoulder before not-so-gently shoving him into the still crowded and chaotic mess hall.

“In there somewhere, buddy!” he bellowed after him, quickly moving away with Hux in tow. “You’re a great guy, Berkins! Good luck!”

The heir snickered to himself, gathering Hux around his shoulders and ruffling his hair (which he was quietly horrified by).

“Man, you sure know how to just keep on goin’ and goin’ and goin’, Crimson. Knew I liked you for a reason,” he showed Hux the keycard held between his fingers. “I had it pinched by the time you finished your second sentence, but I kinda just wanted to see how long you’d go for. Sounds like you pulled it out of a book o’ propaganda or somethin’.”

“The DiGarzas were assisted by the Empire and _arrested_ by the New Republic,” Hux said. “It’s not propaganda if it’s true – the New Republic doesn’t know how to pick allies because it thinks it’s the only good thing in the entire galaxy.”

“Listen, Crimson – if we hadn’t helped the Empire out during the Rebel crisis, they would’ve arrested us instead of the new guys. Nobody wanted my family as allies until we showed ‘em how useful we could be,” Markus shrugged with one arm. “Who knows? Maybe by the time I’m outta here, the New Republic’s bought our favour and me an’ you are technically enemies.”

Hux knew better than that. The New Republic were against all kinds of corruption, even if it worked in their favour.  
But their government was also not a singular, well-oiled machine – it was factions and factions making up a big, disorganised mess in a fancy dress costume. Factions that could be privy to maybe paying a few seedy figures to help this government succeed.

Maybe stage a breakout of the imprisoned DiGarza family.

The truth was despite being raised here as a promising soldier for the New Empire, Markus did not have to pick sides. As soon as four years had passed, all he had to do was carefully find his way back to the Core Worlds and see which side promised a better reward for his help.  
Markus worked with whoever seemed the most promising. And while they were stuck here at the academy as allies, Hux had to become that person. The most promising.

(Not that he had ever thought of himself as less than that.)

“You’ve gone so quiet, Crimson. Don’t worry – I promise not to specifically come huntin’ down your ass if we end up on opposite sides of the playin’ field. I’ll give you a head start or somethin’ and let you make your way into all that Wild Space,” Markus told him, detaching himself from him as soon as they had arrived at the droid maintenance closet. “But let’s focus on the here and now rather than the next four years, yeah?”

He swiped the card against the scanner and the door controls activated, revealing a space full of shelves and drawers exactly as small as they had expected.  
Hopefully it wouldn’t take too long to search as a result.

“Do they list ‘em all alphabetically or somethin’?” Markus asked Hux, who had managed to cram himself into the space alongside him and close the door behind them. “Why would ya even put tape in a damn drawer? Just hang it on a hook or somethin’.”

“I don’t know, DiGarza. I don’t frequent maintenance closets.”

“Bringin’ you into a big, bad new world, aren’t I Crimson?” Markus snorted, stretching to pull open a few of the drawers above them. “Stealin’ and effectively lyin’ and maintenance closets. Tell me if I’m overwhelmin’ you and I’ll slow down.”

Hux rolled his eyes and assisted the search as well as he could in the confined space. There were things in these drawers that he didn’t even recognise – everything was vaguely cylindrical in shape and made of (surprise, surprise) white metal, some with tiny buttons and some without.

“Do you know what this is?” he asked, handing one covered in buttons to Markus.

“Joint meldin’ laser. It’s for fixin’ droids and prosthetics. They’re also good at burning somebody’s eyeballs,” he explained, pocketing it. “which might come in handy.”

“ _Really?_ ”

“They sure won’t see it comin’, will they? You’re hanging out with a DiGarza, Crimson – not everybody’s particularly fond of my family.”

“I thought you wanted them all to be afraid of you.”

“I don’t get to pick whether they’re scared of me or not, Crimson. I don’t get to pick how they’ll use that fear, either – the best thing I can do is squash before they get too big for their boots and think they can get all pissy with me,” something flashed in his eyes when he looked at Hux then, just for a moment. “I _can_ confirm their fears in little ways so they don’t act up.”

The conversation they had earlier about whether Hux was afraid of him or not was suddenly ringing in the red head’s ears. He did his best to ignore it and continue searching the closet.

“What about these?” he handed a few small screws to Markus after a moment’s searching. The heir squinted at them and compared them to the wrecked datapad before finally nodding.

“Good job, Crimson. Now we just need somethin’ to stick everything together in an experimental and archaic fashion,” a grin. “Hence the tape. But really, it’s so I can tear it apart if somethin’ doesn’t work and try again.”

He suddenly produced the named object from a drawer, spinning it on his index finger.

“Now let’s get the heck outta here before we actually conjoin on accident or something.”

This plan did not ask much of the universe.  
However, despite swiping the keycard multiple times over the scanner within the closet, the door made no sounds of even attempting to budge.

“Crap. This ain’t good.”

“Oh,” Hux realised aloud in horror. “perhaps they have a two-way lock authentication within the academy.”

“... One kind of card gets you _in_ the place—”

“—and another gets you _out_.”

The two shared a long, wide-eyed look. Most of the maintenance staff were on the floor above them, and the one who _wasn’t_ didn’t have the keycard required to open the door.  
No. That was because they had taken that keycard.

And now they were trapped in here until, by some far off chance, one of the maintenance staff needed to open the door to this particular closet.

“Remember how you said that smashing didn’t solve every electrical related problem?” Hux said to Markus. “Are you entirely sure you don’t want to revisit that idea?”

 

 

“He’s been gone for too long! What if Markus spotted him following him and _killed_ him?!”

Trentias ran his hands through his hair whilst pacing up and down dorm room 367B, a lit cigarra hanging out of his mouth (he had ignored Darin’s pleas to put it out because of the academy rules a long time ago) and sweat beginning to form on his brow.

He was imagining the first communications they would be allowed to send their families.

_Trentias, my boy! How are you and Armitage?  
Just splendid, father! I’ve already cried and I let Hux get killed by a mob kid! How is Ark Trellis?_

Yep. That would certainly be something to tell Brendol Hux.  
The one person who would _know_ what to do in this situation was Hux. Of course he was! Of course.

“We need to do something! Why are you both just staring at me?!” Trentias snapped to Drathur and Darin. “ _Think!_ ”

“Maybe we should just tell someone,” Darin suggested. “I think, uh, the academy has surveillance droids. They probably saw something, right?”

“Or we could go looking, ya?” Drathur added. “Like I said before Armitage left, maybe Markus just went to get something to eat. We should check the mess hall.”

Trentias nodded stiffly.

“Okay. Okay,” a hard swallow. “We’ll check the mess hall. A-And if they aren’t there, then we’ll tell someone. I don’t know who that someone _is_ , but we’ll tell them.”

He looked at Darin before making any moves to leave the dorm room – sure, he was the tallest and probably most threatening looking of the three of them, but that hadn’t helped at all earlier with the seniors.  
Besides, he still had that sort of... kind expression on his face. You could pick him out as ‘non-threatening’ if the situation called for it.

And Drathur? He was a no-go. Too pretty. Too smiley.

“Well then,” Trentias huffed, arms folded. “neither of you are particularly _rough_ looking, so I guess I’ll have to be the one to ward off any assholes.”

“Sorry, man. I’m just always this laidback.” Drathur shrugged, voice genuinely apologetic. Darin slowly raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

Trentias dropped the cigarra from his mouth and crushed it under his foot, now in deep thought – rough and scary. How could he look rough and scary?  
How did Markus do it? Markus was scary because of who he was, not how he looked (he scratched that thought – Markus did genuinely look terrifying). How was he supposed to emulate that?

“Oh, _kriff_ it,” he snapped. He pushed up his shirt sleeves and undid about three of the buttons on his uniform jacket, and then messed up his immaculately combed blonde hair (very reluctantly). “How does that look? Rough?”

“Well—”

“Yep! You, uh, look like a real mean guy.” Darin outright lied over Drathur, who looked up at him confusedly.  
Trentias seemed satisfied with this answer and hit the door controls.

“Good – let’s go find a hopefully not-dead Hux.”

“Darin,” Drathur spoke to the taller boy in a hushed tone. “He doesn’t look that spooky, man.”

“I know. But we weren’t going anywhere fast, so, uh...” Darin scratched the back of his head, sighing. “I don’t like lying a lot, but I’m actually kind of worried about Armitage.”

“I’m sure he’s probably okay. You and Trentias seem really wound up about Markus,” Drathur shrugged. “I dunno. Maybe I just don’t quite understand his family’s reputation, ya?”

That was right – Drathur was from Do’liith. Way, way out from the Core Worlds. He didn’t know who Palpatine was, so why would he know about the reputation that the DiGarza family carried?  
Darin couldn’t really comprehend what it would be like to enter a territory so foreign the way that Drathur had entered the academy.  
He was Empire born-and-bred. It was all he knew, and all his father and mother knew. He could recite famous speeches, years of skirmishes and lists of generals and lieutenants off by heart. What kinds of things did they even learn off in Do’liith? The rise and falling of the tides, maybe.   
What a strange way to live.

“Come on! Keep up!” Trentias called back to the stragglers, still looking nervous despite being a ‘tough’ guy now.  
Four years. Four years of being too freaked to step into the hallways on his own. He wanted the ground to swallow him up there and then.

The short trip to the mess hall was blissfully uneventful – it was beginning to empty out at this point, and a few staff members were starting to clean tables and mop floors. The fewer number of cadets in the hall made it quicker to confirm what Trentias had feared the entire trip there:  
Hux wasn’t here, nor was Markus. Crap.

“Now what?!” Trentias whispered to the other two, clearly panicked. “The kriffing maintenance staff aren’t going to know where they are!”

“You won’t know until you try!” Drathur said. “I’ll go ask them, ya? You guys wait here.”

“Waaaait, you idiot—!” Trentias sighed in irritation as his words fell on deaf ears. Darin only offered him a shrug.

“He’s right, you know. They might have seen them. Or maybe, uh, they’re in charge of the surveillance droids.”

“I can’t wait to kriffing wake up and find out this entire day has been a nightmare.”

“Geez, it’s not _that_ bad.”

“You want to be here! I don’t!” Trentias snapped, voice quiet and shaking. “You and Hux are all ready to go and die for the New Empire, but I _don’t want to_! I never wanted to! Now I’m stuck here for the next four years with a kriffing _DiGarza_ sleeping in the bed above me!”

He took in a deep breath. Don’t cry out of frustration. Not now.

“I _need_ Hux – it was a kriffing miracle as is that we happened to be sorted into the same dorm room – he’s smarter than me, he knows how to handle all of this better than I ever will. I need him to just... kriffing hold my hand for a little while – not _literally_ – until I can get by without getting myself killed or something. I know he doesn’t like me, but we share the whole ‘my father made this happen’ thing, so there’s an understanding, I guess,” he sniffed loudly. “So he can’t be dead – and if he’s not, you’re not to tell him a kriffing _word_ of this. Are we clear?”

Darin only nodded, trying to place a comforting hand on Trentias’ shoulder but receiving an absolutely scathing look from the blonde which made him change his mind very quickly.  
Drathur returned to them then, with a member of the maintenance staff in tow.

“Guess what, you guys? This guy says he saw Armitage and Markus earlier!” Drathur looked thrilled with himself – the staff member, however, looked like he would burn holes into the next thing he set eyes on.

“Yeah! I _saw_ your _friends_!” Berkins spat. “They lead me down here and stole one of my access keycards before making a run for it!”

Trentias’ face drained of all colour, his polite smile now twitching.

“... Did they indeed?”

“So I reckon they’re probably locked in the nearest maintenance closet, because the academy has a two-way lock authentication on all of them – the keycard won’t get them _out_ of there the way it got them _in_ there to do who _knows_ what,” Berkins continued. “And you know what? It’s not my problem anymore! I can’t get them out of there without the keycard they _took_ from me, and I’ve got a bunch of senior cadets’ blood to mop up on Floor -3!”

The three cadets exchanged looks.

“... So what you’re saying is—”

“You’re on your own! That’s what I’m saying!”

Berkins continued to mutter angrily to himself as he wheeled his mop bucket away from the three of them, who remained frozen in place.

“Wow. I didn’t think Armitage liked Markus like that – they only met today—”

“ _Please stop talking about it!_ ” Trentias nearly screamed at Darin, unable to wipe every single mental image he had just conjured up from his own head. “We just need to go and get them and pretend this never, ever, _ever_ happened!”

“Wait, what are you guys talking about?” Drathur asked. “Am I misunderstanding something? So they’re stuck in a maintenance closet – that’s not a taboo or something here, is it?”

Darin looked like he was either going to laugh or throw up. He felt like doing both. Trentias took in a deep breath, eyes to the heavens, and managed the smallest, most defeated, “We’ll talk about it _later_ ,” that the universe had probably ever heard.

“... Well, how are we going to get them out of there? We don’t have the keycard he mentioned.” Drathur enquired after Pault’s quiet breakdown.

“I’m going to cut the door down with my concentrated _horror_ , that’s how we’re going to do it,” Trentias replied, sighing afterwards. “Look, we need to see the kriffing door so we know what we’re dealing with before we make any rescue plans, so let’s do that first. Find the maintenance closet.”

This had to be a nightmare. Wake up, Trentias. _Please_.

 

 

Smashing did not solve this electrical problem, Markus and Hux found out after a solid three minutes of the former kicking the door with everything he had in him. The next course of action had involved Markus instructing Hux on how to begin fixing Trentias’ datapad whilst he searched the closet for any kind of instrument that might break them out of it.  
If that failed, then hopefully electrical blueprints on the datapad might reveal a fail-safe that would override the door controls. It was still only a _might_.

“This was not how I envisioned my first day at the academy would go.” Hux said, carefully using tape to fix loose wires and what looked like a memory piece back into place as per his company’s instructions.

“It was all going pretty good until this part, I gotta admit, Crimson. I got to hit on one of the pretty seniors _and_ got to steal somethin’ on the same day. We were on a roll.”

“Let’s not use the past-tense so loosely just yet – I don’t plan on dying in here, and neither should you.”

“Aw, ain’t you sweet? Let’s keep on keepin’ on, Crimson.”

Markus suddenly broke into a grin, pulling a somewhat large cylindrical object out of one of the drawers.

“Do I want to know what that is?” Hux asked. “Are you going to use it to remove limbs?”

“Nah, Crimson – I’m gonna use it to get us outta here.”

“Oh! Well, that’s certainly—”

Hux was not proud of the shriek that came out of his mouth next instead of the rest of his sentence, but it was the only reaction he could muster together when Markus momentarily activated the as-of-yet unidentified object he had fished out of the drawers – it made the shrill sound of a burner, and certainly seemed to be very, very capable of doing that very thing, judging by the flashes of yellow, red and purple that it had emitted alongside the _sparks_.  
As soon as it had started doing _everything_ , it was finished, too – Markus whistled lowly, looking over the now dormant thing with excited eyes.

“You are not using a _military-grade plasma cutter_ to get us out of this very kriffing small closet!” Hux snapped, able to name the object as soon as it had been activated (there were some childhood memories one simply could not forget). “You’ll kill us both!”

“Military-grade, huh? That’s why it’s got such oomph in it!”

“DiGarza—!”

“Shush shush shush – you’ll worry all the freckles off your face, Crimson.”

“I won’t get the chance to do that when you _burn them off_ for me!”

“Look – I wouldn’t ‘a picked it up if I didn’t know what I was doin’. So you keep tryin’ to fix the datapad, and I’ll work on the burnin’ part. Okay?”

That was when the banging on the door started.

“Hux! Are you in there?!” came what was unmistakeably Trentias’ shrill voice from the other side of the door. “You’d better not be deflowering that kriffing closet!”

“Pault?!” Hux answered. “Stars, I never thought I’d actually be relieved to hear your voice.”

“For kriff’s sake—is Markus in there? He hasn’t trapped you in there, has he?”

“DiGarza managed to trap the two of us in here,” he shot Markus a glare, which was only returned with an eyeroll. “And there is no _deflowering_ going on, you awful little pervert.”

“Move outta the damn way, Paultie – I’m tryna get us out of here, and I don’t need you as collateral damage.” Markus ordered, firing up the plasma cutter again.

“Wait, what the kriff is that sound? What about collateral damage?” Trentias asked.

“I am _not_ going to die because you’re too impatient to wait until we can find a fail-safe!” Hux grabbed the arm that Markus planned on using the cutter with – he was quickly met with an absolutely blood-curdling glare.

“Get your hands offa’ me, Crimson. I’m not gonna ask twice.”

“Well, that certainly leaves us in quite the predicament, because I’m not moving them until you turn the kriffing cutter off.”

Markus went to wrench Hux’s hand off of him, but the limited space made him stumble – and there was no way that Hux’s small form could support his weight.  
They both fell against the door, the plasma burner still burning haphazardly and the noxious smell filling the tiny space confirming that yes, something was definitely burning.

_[DANGEROUS HEAT LEVELS DETECTED – ACTIVATING DOOR CONTROL OVER-RIDE.]_

The door slid open – Hux and Markus both fell backwards on to the hall floor in a very unglamourous fashion, one atop the other. The datapad and plasma cutter clattered to the ground, too. The latter was thankfully no longer burning anything.  
Trentias, Darin and Drathur didn’t help either of their dorm mates up for a moment. They just stared and stared and stared and Trentias was still wondering if _unsavoury_ things had gone on before they had arrived.

(Although the relative good state of their uniforms eased these fears a lot.)

“Are, uh, are you guys okay?” Darin finally asked.

Markus stared down at Hux, who was still trapped underneath his larger frame, expression a mixture of irritation and curiosity.  
One side of the heir’s mouth turned upwards.

“Heh. You really aren’t scared of me.”

Getting to his feet without any of the help offered to him by Darin and Drathur, Markus then held out a hand for Hux to take.  
After a moment’s hesitation, he did so. His ascent was wobbly, but he soon righted himself and retrieved the datapad from the floor not too far from them.

“Wait a second – is that _my_ datapad?” Trentias asked. “What were you planning on doing with it?! Was I ever going to be let in on this?!”

“Pault,” Hux held up a hand, begging quiet for a moment. “I will tell you everything as soon as I can have a cigarra. I need to... lie down for a moment as well.”

Both Hux and Markus began to make their way back to the dormitory halls – an exasperated Trentias followed soon afterwards.  
Drathur looked to Darin, who was staring at the charred wall and plasma cutter on the floor.

“... If I tidy all of this away, I’m covering up so many academy rule violations. Theft. Trespassing. Use of military-grade weaponry outside of monitored practical classes,” he said, swallowing hard. “They could probably, uh, both be expelled for this kind of stuff. Or severely punished.”

Drathur only nodded, unsure of what to say.

Darin took one, two, three steps forward until he was in front of the plasma cutter, and sighed deeply before picking it up.

“This is bad. This is so wrong.”

“Hey,” Drathur placed a hand on his back. “sticking together is good, ya? Teamwork. I mean, hopefully we don’t get the short end of the stick next time.”

This seemed to be enough to ease Darin’s fraught mind.

“Hey! Are you gonna tell me about the two-people-in-a-closet taboo now?” Drathur added, smiling. “I don’t wanna insult somebody’s sensibilities by mistake, you know?”

Never mind. The fraught returned almost instantly.

 

 

Night fell, and the time-sensitive curfew door controls all activated as soon as the clock struck ten. There were several things the young men had not even considered maneuvering around until their bedtime rituals were forced upon them.  
Whether or not to share the refresher. Who could deal with the lights being on and who needed complete darkness to sleep.  
Undressing in front of each other. They all had the next four years to get over all of these things.

Eventually they all found themselves in their respective bunks after navigating these first-night obstacles, and a pleasant hush hung over the room. Hux sat up with a cigarra hanging out of his mouth, reading over the Empire war literature stored in his datapad; Drathur softly sang Do’liithian sea-shanties to all of them to zero complaints (he had a very lovely voice, Hux could admit).  
Trentias Pault was buried as far into the corner of his bunk as he could go, blanket covering his entire body, trying very, very hard not to cry. Darin settled for just twiddling his thumbs whilst waiting for sleep to fall over him.

“Gotcha!” Markus suddenly exclaimed as a new, blue light lit up a portion of the fairly dark room. He had finally managed to fix Trentias’ datapad.

“You actually fixed it? The memory chip is still functioning?” Hux asked, looking over from his bunk in vague interest. Below Markus, Trentias quietly emerged from under his blanket.

“What did I tell ya, Crimson? Tape and screws. You don’t need nothin’ fancy to fix things like this.”

“Am I actually getting it back?” Trentias asked in a tiny voice. “Or are you keeping it for... morally questionable things?”

Hux looked from Markus to Trentias. The latter looked miserable, but was managing to put on a brave face whilst he wasn’t completely obscured by blankets.  
Damnit.

“Give it back to him,” Hux told Markus. “We’ll look at the maps tomorrow – I’ve had far more than enough excitement for one day, thank you very much.”

Markus shrugged and handed the device below to his bunk mate, who took it and immediately retreated back underneath his bedcovers.

“Well, then – I’m going to turn the rest of the lights out, if nobody else minds.”

Nobody seemed to object to this, so Hux stashed his datapad underneath his pillow and hit the light controls by his bunk, submerging the room in darkness.  
Drathur’s singing continued into the night, although quieter. Trentias did his very best to muffle most of his crying into his pillow. Hux lay awake for what felt like the longest time, his mind suddenly coming around to the realization that this was just day one. Classes began tomorrow, and with them would come practicals and exams and projects. The ruly and the unruly cadets. Teachers who would want to guide them and those who would want to simply order them around.

Four years seemed like an impossibly long time that night.  
In fact, every night felt like that for the next four years.

**Author's Note:**

> Cliffhanger? Sort of. Markus is one of my favourites of these OCs, so you can bet he's gonna get more written on him later on.  
> I hope y'all like my OCs! I wanted to introduce the main five characters we'll be dealing with (that's including Hux) before I get further into things. I'm not sure how chronologically I'll write these. Maybe I'll just write them as they come to me.  
> Also: PLEASE tell me if there's big, glaring editorial errors in here. I don't have a beta-reader! I never have. It's nearly one am and I skimmed the hell out of this. Forgive me.
> 
> Well, I think that's all I have to say. You can come bother me on tumblr. I love to get stuff in my ask box so you're more than welcome to leave stuff in there: http://bowdowntomama.tumblr.com


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